


a breath between

by meirav



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Alcoholism, Other, Past Child Abuse, Post-Canon, Repressed Memories, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:14:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8715415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meirav/pseuds/meirav
Summary: When Malfoy draws his wand, Harry is out of his seat in an instant, though he isn’t sure where he thinks he’ll go. “I just need to work on it a little more,” He’s stalling even though he’s almost sure anything worth hiding is safely tucked away by this point, “I just need a few more days is all.”Harry has to learn how to occlude, but something is hidden in his mind that he isn't sure he wants discovered.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The bolded dialogue was borrowed directly from The Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 28 entitled Snape's Memories. 
> 
> Heavy trigger warning in this fic for the abuse of a child by a person in a position power over them. Feel free to skip the section near the end written entirely in italics, the rest of the fic makes sense without knowing the gory details.

To be Head Auror, Kinglsey says, Harry will have to learn to occlude in earnest. Harry leaves the conversation with ringing ears. It’s not the work he’s afraid to put in; just the idea of someone rooting through his memories makes the space behind Harry’s eyes hurt something awful.

\--------

Harry hates when Ginny touches the back of his neck. It makes him feel guilty, like someone is angry with him for something he hasn’t even done. It’s impossible, Harry thinks, to relish in tender moments when a foreign sense of dread sinks to the pit of his stomach and sticks there every time they touch. So when they’re kissing on the Weasley’s couch while everyone else is somehow away, Harry pretends it doesn’t bother him when Ginny cards her hands through his hair and ends at the space between his shoulder blades. Even when she remembers and apologizes, Harry tells her it’s nothing really. It’s nothing.

\--------

Harry won’t look people in the eye. He knows it’s unfounded, but it makes his palms sweat and the knuckles of his left hand clutch involuntarily. Nothing shows when he examines himself in the mirror, but he can’t shake the feeling that there is something hidden there that other people shouldn’t see.

Ron looks worried when Harry tells him this, hides his fear behind that gentle, goofy smile, “That part of you died when you-know-who killed it, mate.”

Harry can’t articulate that this isn’t quite the same thing.

\--------

“Well I, for one, think this’ll be great for you!” Hermione says over dinner when Harry explains his new prospects and Kingsley’s conditions, “Just think Harry, it’ll really help when you worry that people can tell your secrets through your eyes!”

Harry’s fork clatters when it falls from his hands, and he’s pushing himself out of his seat before Ron can even make a face at Hermione to signal that she’s said something wrong. He knew Ron would tell, but he never imagined it would come out sounding so… unhinged. Harry tries to understand how they must see it as he clunks up the stairs to Ron and Hermione’s bedroom suite.

They think he’s crazy, Harry realizes while he’s splashing cold water on his face in their small, shared bathroom. He guesses he must be if this is how he’s been understood.

\--------

“You’re joking.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Draco Malfoy is sitting on the desk in Harry’s study when he enters, brown leather boots resting lazily on Harry’s own chair.

“The Weaselette let me in,” Malfoy says in greeting, “Shacklebolt said you’d be home later though.”

Reeling, Harry stalks into the room, pushes Malfoy’s boots off of his favorite chair, and stands to face the other man with his arms crossed.

There they stay: Malfoy’s ass on Harry’s desk, looking as smug as a gnome in a cabbage patch, and Harry standing angrily before him, struggling to calm the horrible feeling that something about this situation is incredibly wrong.

\--------

Ginny catches his wrist when Harry tries to swipe a bit of frosting from the cake she’s made for George’s birthday, and Harry can’t bite back the yelp that rises in his throat. It’s pathetic, the way he makes her smile falter like that. He shakes his head but the fog doesn’t seem to be clearing anytime soon.

\--------

_Sharp hands wrap around Harry’s throat and he can feel their strength beneath his own desperate palms._

I’m sorry

_There is wetness on his face but he can’t tell if he’s crying or if his nose has begun to bleed._

I’m sorry.

_**“Having fun, Potter?”** _

Please

\--------

“How much did you learn to occlude when we were in school?”

Harry thinks back, but all he’s met with is that unfamiliar sense of dread rising in him like a flame, “It’s like throwing off the Imperius curse,” He offers finally. When Malfoy shakes his head, Harry has to fight all urges to protect himself. Strange.

He picks at the skin on his fingers as Malfoy outlines the basic technique.

“The goal is to clear your mind….” Harry starts at the rough patch around his thumbnail with his index finger, “build barriers around that empty space to make sure everything else there is protected...” Slowly the skin gives way under Harry’s attention; in turn he digs his thumbnail into the soft flesh of his opposite palm. “Only allow exactly what you’d like to pass through…”

Malfoy drawls on about memories, boxes, and barriers, but Harry only hears every other word.

\--------

“You alright mate?” Ron asks. His hand on Harry’s shoulder burns its way through Harry’s shirt and into his skin. It’s blistering.

“‘M’alright,” Harry slurs, though it isn’t the truth. The bar is too warm, the drinking too heavy. The people around him make him feel vulnerable and trapped. He tries to stand but his legs won’t cooperate with his feet.

“Think you’ve had enough,” Ron says, as disapprovingly as Harry thinks his best mate can get, and helps to pull him out of the bar seat and into a standing position on the floor. Harry slips backwards into a colleague and is met with a chuckle and advice to “Watch it, Potter.”

_“Watch it, Potter.”_

Harry's dizzy. The voice in his head is coming from nowhere in the bar that he can trace.

_“Watch it, Potter.”_

He’s on the floor, but he doesn’t remember falling.

_“Potter.”_

They’re outside now, Harry clinging tightly to Ron’s shirt, fistfuls of fabric crumpled under Harry’s scraped palms. His face is soaked but he doesn’t remember crying. His shirt is soaked but he can’t remember being ill.

“Oh Harry,” Ron’s voice is distant, like he’s talking at the end of a long, long tunnel.

\--------

Harry’s clothes are clean when he wakes up, but he feels the filthiest he’s ever been in his life. It’s not fair that Ginny should have to hold him like this when they’re both recovering from the same war. It doesn’t make sense that everyone should get to feeling better except for him.

\---------

“I can’t tell if you’ve done it properly if you won’t let me check, Potter.” Harry hates his last name, absolutely despises it, “These sessions mean nothing if all we’re doing are the guided meditations I’ve told you to work on in your own time.”

When Malfoy draws his wand, Harry is out of his seat in an instant, though he isn’t sure where he thinks he’ll go. “I just need to work on it a little more,” He’s stalling even though he’s almost sure anything worth hiding is safely tucked away by this point, “I just need a few more days is all.”

\--------

Even rebuilt, Hogwarts isn’t as grand as it was when they were small, but teaching’s been good to Neville and Harry is glad to have a break from it all for at least a few hours.

“They’re worried that you aren’t telling them everything. That Malfoy’s got something to do with all of... _this_.” Neville makes a broad pass over harry with a butterbeer clenched fist, and looks at him with no expectation at all. Harry can’t tell how grateful he is to finally hear the truth, to be with someone who doesn’t step around him like he’s broken. Leave it to Neville, Harry thinks as he sips. He seems happy to be back at school, but there’s something here that Harry can’t help feeling like he ought to run away from.

It’s Neville’s turn to observe quidditch practice, so Harry sits and watches too.  A student comes barreling out of the sky, dipping quickly below the horizon and just out of view, “If I fell from that height do you think I’d make it?” He asks, and Neville hands him another bottle.

\--------

When Harry walks into the study he knows something is not quite right. Malfoy’s sitting on the desk as usual but he’s looking at Harry intently, like he’s trying to crack a code. Harry gags. His legs start to shake.

“Get out of my head, Malfoy.” He snaps, trying his best to stay upright and balanced.

“You’ve cleaned up well in here, and it didn’t take you long to figure out I was intruding. The meditations must be working.”

Harry’s stomach works itself into knots, he holds his breath as Malfoy pokes lightly around the inside of his mind.

“First I’ll teach you how to get me out,” This feels all too familiar and all to wrong for Harry not to have experienced it before. His breath feels like syrup as it enters and exits his lungs. He’s about to puke, before Malfoy slips seamlessly out of his thoughts.

“And then we’ll work on preventing anyone from sneaking through the walls in the first place.”

\--------

Ginny says she doesn’t mind missing date night, but Harry is sorry to keep her at home, “Ron and Hermione are gonna be boring anyway,” She says as she pops a ready made pizza out of the oven, and pushes Harry over on their small, lumpy couch.

When they listen to their evening programs, Harry tries to forget her arms wrapped around his middle. He focuses on untangling the knots in her hair while she dozes.

\--------

“May I?” Malfoy’s taken to asking  before he tries to enter Harry's mind, and Harry knows it’s because the last few unannounced visits have ended poorly for the two of them. He nods at the question, and does his best as Malfoy walks him through the necessary steps to occlusion.

“You’re getting it!” Malfoy calls, as Harry pushes the man further out of his head. He can do this, he reminds himself quietly, ignoring the knot that his stomach makes every time Malfoy goes in.

\--------

“What will you do, if you’re not an auror anymore?” Ron is dumbfounded as he looks at Harry over breakfast.

“I’ll still be in the department just…not in the field, Kingsley and I are developing the position now.” He doesn’t add that the two came to an agreement when it became apparent that Harry was no longer fit for practical work, he doesn’t say that Kingsley suggested a leave of absence before this.

Ron takes large gulps of his coffee, and punches Harry lightly in the shoulder, one of the only touches Harry can stand nowadays. “Brain over brawn,” He says, “Aye Mate?” And chuckles to himself as he polishes off the last of his beans.

\--------

“Your _friends_ seem to think I am torturing you during our sessions. I haven’t the slightest Idea how they came to this conclusion, but I have had it. Call. them. off.” Malfoy’s voice is the most aggressive Harry’s heard it since before the war. Harry takes a step back and suppresses his shudder.

“I’ve told them all that what you’re doing is fine. It’s not my fault they don’t listen now is it.”

“I’m trying to do my job, Potter,” -Harry flinches again at the word- “And I can’t very well do that if you’ve gathered lackeys in my workplace to threaten me before you come!”

“They’re trying to keep me safe, Malfoy! Why would you agree to this if you weren’t ready to be hated.” It’s a low blow sure, but Harry isn’t in the mood for petty arguments. It’s one thing for _him_ to be annoyed at his friends for butting into his business, but Malfoy knows full well he’s a reasonable suspect. They haven’t talked about this arrangement at all since it started, and Harry is tired of letting things slide.

“It’s a deal with Shacklebolt,” Malfoy’s face has fallen into its usual scowl, the one harry remembers from before the war, “gets me off probation five years early, see,” He adds at Harry’s wordless prompting.

Malfoy packs his things quickly as he spits, “Work on your meditations then. I’ll be back next week once your friends have had time to complete a full background check.” With that, he is turning to leave. It’s all Harry can do not to trip the git on his way out.

\--------

Teddy and Ron are tussling on the living room floor when Harry gets home from work. He watches as Teddy runs and tucks, canon balling directing into Ron’s chest.

Ron giggles, grabs the laughing boy, and begins to tickle him all over.

“Ooh I bet you’re sorry now!” He says with a chuckle.

_“Sorry.”_

_I am. I’m sorry._

_“Bet you’re sorry now,” comes that drawling voice, the same as in all the others._

\--------

“All good, Potter?” Malfoy’s got a hand flat on the small of Harry’s back, while Harry stands, crumpled at the waist, palms flat against his bent knees.

“Don’t call me that,” He says shrugging Malfoy out of his personal space, and taking a labored step back, “It’s Harry, alright? It’s Harry.”

\--------

_Strong hands are holding him up by the neck and Harry’s sure he’s about to snap in two._

_A man whispers harshly into Harry’s ear, every lie he has ever told himself and any person he’s ever loved._

We’ll make it out.

_Liar_

I’m sorry.

_Liar._

I’m sorry.

\--------

“If I knew it was going to do this to you, I wouldn’t have pushed so hard for you to learn,” Kingsley is standing Behind his tall desk, watching Harry fidget in an over stuffed leather chair.

“Malfoy’s not- It’s not him that’s the problem…” Harry doesn’t know how to say what is. He doesn’t know how to admit that he really doesn’t know.

Kingsley is looking at him still, an echo of concern teasing the corners of his mouth, “You’ve already turned down the position, you know. You don’t have to do this anymore.” Harry doesn’t bother trying to explain that he really does.

\--------

Harry wraps his arms around Ginny that night and neither of them sleep as well as they should. “Is it because of me?” She asks carefully in the morning, but Harry doesn’t understand the question until she’s stuttered through two attempts at explanation, cheek’s flushed red with embarrassment, or discomfort, or both.

 

“No Gin, of course not,” _Sharp hands wrap around his throat, a voice calls his name like an order or a curse_ , “I just don’t think I like to be touched so much right now is all.”

 

He thinks she won’t understand as well as he’d like, but Ginny just nods, and asks softly if she can hold Harry’s hand. He pulls her in close until the length of their arms are touching side by side, and Harry thinks he’ll never find another person so lovely for as long as he lives.

\--------

Shacklebolt’s office is always colder than Harry remembers, and being there is beginning to feel like a death sentence. Though he’s never felt endangered in Kingsley’s presence, Harry’s grateful when the he doesn’t ask him to close the door when Harry enters. There is something wrong, Harry thinks, about being alone with a man who has power. He could do so much harm if he wished to.

\--------

Malfoy, damn him, isn’t as bad at this as Harry had expected he’d be. He might even have to say thank you one day.

\--------

The liquor burns Harry’s throat raw, but he goes in for another swig anyway. Ron pulls the bottle away, and wraps an arm around his shoulders instead. “If it’s Malfoy, you can tell us,” He says so seriously that Harry wants to laugh in his face. If only a person were the cause of this mess, that would be an easy fix.

\--------

“Severus taught me just before the war. Mother said she didn’t want the Dark Lord knowing anything more about our family that he must,” Malfoy is playing with the seem on Harry’s lush armchair, it’s the first time he’s been anything but one hundred percent composed since they began their lessons.It suits him, Harry thinks.

“I reckon she wanted to give me an option to go to the light, If i wanted to” a hint of playful regret plays behind Malfoy’s eyes, “I never did, of course.”

\--------

Harry supposes he should apologize to Hermione. Let her know that everything he’s done in the past month hasn’t been all her fault.

\--------

“Good.” Malfoy says from his perch on the desk, “you’ve shut me out every time I’ve tried to enter.”

Malfoy’s got him doing paperwork. Has Harry sorting through cases, and thinking hard, and only occluding when he feels that familiar tug in the pit of his stomach, he supposes he also feels it in the periphery of his mind, but the latter doesn’t leave the taste of bile rising in the back of his throat in quite the same way.

“I think we’ll leave it here then,” Malfoy says, sliding down from the table and picking his bag up from the desk, “Maybe we can work on bringing forth wanted memories next.

\--------

Ginny rubs his shoulders as Harry retches brokenly into the kitchen sink. He’d barely made it down the stairs after Malfoy had left them.

“In order to do that, you’re going to have to let me in to see how you’re mind is set up.” He’d said a bit before he’d flooed out. Just the thought of letting Malfoy into his head like that left Harry’s stomach churning something awful.

\--------

“Harry, maybe something happened that you somehow blocked off.” Hermione offers gently one morning over tea, “I mean, with all this new work on your memories and stuff... things are bound to come up…”

\--------

Ron and Neville are drunkenly singing some endless song that they can’t quite remember, and Harry is almost happy to be out with them both. There is something sinister about the way he expects to start feeling rotten so soon, like his default is turning into fear.

\--------

“Well Potter, It seems you knew more than you let on.” There’s that word again- Potter- Harry’s so put off by it that he almost misses what Malfoy is saying.

“The new barriers… these are great,” Malfoy drawls on. Harry is shaking. The sensation of another person so obviously in his head is more than a little off putting. “But these,” Harry feels a something akin to a hard punch in the stomach, it’s all he can do to keep himself from upturning its contents all over the study floor, “These are magnificent. And _old_. When did you start this?”

\--------

**_“…been enjoying yourself, Potter?”_ **

\--------

“Don- Don’t mess around up there,” Harry’s head is starting to pound like hell, and his eyes feel like they’re pressing out of his skull.

“This isn’t your magic,” Harry doesn’t quite understand what Malfoy of saying, “This isn’t your magic, Potter. Someone else has put these walls up in your head.”

\--------

**_"Having fun?”_ **

\--------

“Potte- Harry. I have to take these down. We have to- to figure out exactly what is being hidden here.”

“No,” Harry starts, but Malfoy is tearing away at a part of his brain that Harry hasn’t noticed in a long time, “Ow!” He says. Malfoy doesn’t stop, “Ow, fuck! Ow!”

_\--------_

**_“Having fun?”_ **

**_“Having fun?”_ **

**_“Having fun?”_ **

\--------

“P- Harry. This is gonna hurt like hell, I’m so sorry,” Draco says, and the floodgates are opened. Just like that.

\--------

**_"Who wants to see me take off Snivelly's pants?"_ **

_Harry is pulled from the pensieve by strong hands holding tightly to his upper arms, he can feel himself being lifted until his feet are off the ground._

**_“Having fun?”_ ** _Professor Snape is sneering at him, long nose centered on a  greasy face mere centimeters away from Harry’s own. “_ **_So,”_ ** _he says, holding Harry’s arms so violently that Harry can feel his hands beginning to go numb,_ **_"been enjoying yourself, Potter?”_ **

_Harry tries to tell professor Snape no, tries to explain that this is all a misunderstanding. Harry tries to free himself but he can’t, and Snape’s hands are wrapping tighter around Harry’s biceps, and Harry thinks he’ll cry if the pressure doesn’t stop soon, but then he doesn’t have to worry because he’s flying across the room and landing hard on cold the dungeon floor._

_There is silence for a few terse moments as both parties process what has just occurred, Harry can see Snape’s chest rise and fall under his robes as he walks towards him with calm and sinister intention._ **_“You will not tell anybody what you saw,”_ ** _Each word is a stab in the chest as Snape hoists Harry up off the ground and presses him against the classroom wall._

_“Professo- I- what are you-“ Harry’s breath nearly stops as Snape pulls out his wand and presses it directly to Harry’s forehead._

_He closes his eyes, but a voice, thick with anger pulls them open again, and Harry is looking directly into Snape’s eyes as the man enters his thoughts._

\--------

_-Harry is seven and they are all at the fair in the summertime. Dudley is on a rollercoaster Harry isn’t allowed to ride, Aunt Petunia yells at him for asking for another ice lolly when his falls- was pushed by his cousin-- into the sand-_

_\--------_

_-Ten years old and retching under a play park structure on the opposite side of town from Privet Drive, Dudley’s crew has been taking turns chasing him for hours now, and has only just stopped. If he goes back to his uncle’s house now, Harry won’t be let in for another hour at least-_

_\--------_

_-Harry’s twelve and he hasn’t eaten because Petunia’s gone out and Vernon’s forgot to shove food through the flap in the door-_

_\--------_

_-He’s fourteen and watching Cedric die, and watching his mother get taken from him again and again and again and-_

_\--------_

_-Summer fifteen and Vernon’s just decked him for ‘using that bloody thing outside of school’, and Harry’s just been expelled, and Harry’s just lost his home, and Vernon is winding back for another punch-_

\--------

_“Uncomfortable, Potter?” Snape is in front of him, face almost touching Harry’s own, holding Harry’s neck tightly from the back while his wand threatens to break the skin on Harry’s left temple, “Now you know how it feels,” He spits, “When your memories are stolen by someone you hate.”_

_It’s juvenile sure, but somehow Harry is struck by the notion that Snape hates him, he wants to apologize, but his voice is sore from… from… when had he been screaming? Snape moves so that Harry is standing upright, so that Harry can stand without the wall at his back, and brings his wand up in between Harry’s eyes. It’s uglier than Harry thought, cloudy black and weirdly grooved. He chokes back a sob when Snape pushes him back against the wall._

_Harry braces himself for the pain of another unwelcome trip into his memories, but Snape is looking at him with eyes like fire and muttering words under his breath, “Obliviate,” He whispers. And it is over._

\--------

“What the fucking hell was that?” Malfoy is in the middle of the study, watching Harry with cold gray eyes as he throws up all over the rug. When Harry looks up Ginny is in the doorway, wand out, looking at Draco with accusation and fury.

Harry knows what she think’s she's walked in on. “It wasn’t him,” He chokes out, as soon as he’s able to catch a breath, “It wasn’t him, Gin, I promise. It wasn’t him!” He’s rambling he knows, but his head genuinely feels like it’s going to split down the middle, and he needs to make sure Malfoy isn’t attacked if Harry loses consciousness.

He isn’t sure how, but Ginny is at his side, vanishing the sick on the rug, and pulling him up into her arms. Harry can hear her barking orders at Malfoy, but he isn’t sure what they mean. He let’s himself pass out against Ginny’s chest.

\--------

Ron says they should revoke Snape’s Order of Merlin, post-haste, and Harry laughs when Hermione offers to write the protocol then and there. He doesn’t know how well the idea will go over with Minister Shacklebolt, but he’s willing to give it a try if his friends are.

“I didn’t die just to grant posthumous honor to men who don’t deserve it,” Harry says indignantly. It’s the first joke he’s made in weeks, they laugh until they’re tired and their sides hurt.

\--------

“Welcome to the Unspeakables,” Kinglsey is leading him down through rooms in the Ministry that Harry never knew existed, “of course you won’t be on the force, but you’ll be in it. You’re the driver, Harry, I know you can do it." Harry isn't so sure. 

\--------

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny are sitting on the Weasley’s large couch at the burrow, waiting for summer solstice to begin, when Hermione answers one of the only questions he has left.

“He wasn’t good at oblivation,” She says quietly while ginny and Ron bicker playfully beside them, and Harry knows exactly who the ‘he’ in question is without having to ask, “it was in his file. The Order once had to track down a muggle he tried to obliviate but couldn't quite.”  That explains the barriers then, Harry thinks, clever.

\--------

“He shouldn’t have done that to you,” Draco tells him over coffee one morning in a muggle café, “It was wrong, you know. Really”  
  
Harry is watching a kid Teddy’s age climb over his mother and into his father’s lap, giggling. He thinks he should take Teddy out more, he’s been feeling up to it finally. He doesn’t want to talk about snape.  
  
“The least he could have done was let me remember.” Harry sips his hot chocolate, thinking that you must be an incredible coward to hurt someone and not even let them have the dignity of knowing what you did. He is pulled from his musing as Draco commits a minor invasion on his thoughts. It still makes his palms sweat, but at least now he knows why.  
  
  
“Well, you remember now,” Draco says, and relents when Harry gets him all the way out of his head, closing the gates of his mind tightly shut behind him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> What better way to work through childhood trauma than by projecting it onto the characters you love to watch suffer? 
> 
> I tagged this for everything that I could think of, but if you have something else to add please let me know.
> 
>  
> 
> [my tumblr is here](http://www.dracobaby.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> Reviews are greatly appreciated! Thanks ✿


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